I have here a letter from Randy. “Sean,” the note begins—people are always calling me that. “Do you have any words of wisdom I can give to my son?

“My son, Jason, is getting married on Friday, and I am responsible for his wedding toast. I’d like some wisdom to pass on, the only problem is, I don’t have any.”

Well, Randy, I asked a handful of friends for words of wisdom from elders in their lives.

The rules were simple, the wisdom giver had to (a) be over 75, and (b) they had to be—technically—still alive. The deadline for submission was yesterday. The maxims and folk expressions came in from all over the US.

Here are some:

LINDA, 91—Being frugal doesn’t mean you have to be cheap. Being cheap doesn’t help anyone, and it takes the fun out of life. My late husband was so cheap he wouldn’t have paid a nickel to see Jesus riding a bicycle.

SIMON, 82—A lot of people are into fitness, and that’s great, I guess. But you can’t live longer, you can only

live deeper.

BEVA, 89—Happiness is a town halfway between Too Little and Too Much.

RITA, 83—American girls need to eat real food. Eat until you have to unbutton your pants now and then. Heavensake, there are girls on TV so skinny you can’t even see their shadow.

JERRY, 80—Being rich isn’t the same as being comfortable. My uncle was so rich, he bought a new boat every time the other one got wet. And he was miserable.

ROBYN, 78—Even if someone is ugly to you, don’t be ugly back.

DANNY, 91—This is a generation of workaholics. On the farm, we stopped work every day at three to enjoy our life. But young people today are busier than a cat covering crap on a marble floor. Slow down.

SAM, 88—Being humble don’t mean you ain’t got your pride. But a Rolls-Royce…

Somewhere in Georgia. An old cafe. Vinyl booth seats. Duct tape on the cushions. Country music overhead. Reba is singing about Fancy.

The waitress is young. Maybe sixteen. She is wearing dental braces. She’s dressed in the local high-school colors. She is pregnant.

Far as I can tell, she’s the only waitress on duty.

She takes my order, and apologizes in advance for slow service.

“Ain’t got no other waitresses today,” she explains. “And I’m pregnant.”

“How far along?”

“Seven months.”

“Is the baby kicking a lot?”

“Hardly even moves. I asked my doctor when my baby would finally move. Doctor said, ‘With any luck, after he graduates college.’”

The waitress is in the weeds today. Her dining room is full. She tells all customers there is going to be a wait. But people don’t seem to mind. They don’t get worked up in small towns.

While I wait, I look around. The dining room features all types. Men in camo. Workers in neon vests. Muddy boots galore.

Young marrieds, nestled in booths, speaking animatedly with one another.

Old married couples, hardly speaking. You can always tell a couple who

has been married a while. They barely speak.

Last week, for example, my cousin and I were on a golf course. We overheard an elderly couple having a sparse conversation. The old man said, “Honey, if I died, would you remarry again?”

“No sweetie,” she said.

“I’m sure you would.”

“Well,” she said. “Maybe I would.”

He said, “Would you let him sleep in our bed?”

“I guess so.”

“Would you let him drive my truck?”

“I suppose.”

“Would you let him use my clubs?”

She replied, “No, he’s left handed.”

Also in the dining room today are a bunch of high-schoolers. I don’t know why they aren’t in school. They seem to be friends with the waitress.

They’re laughing with her. Being loud. Playfully giving her a hard time.…

NEW YORK—LaGuardia Airport is located in the Queens borough of New York, smack dab in the Fifth Circle of Hell.

The airport is big, rundown, covered in bubblegum wads, and full of angry people who are waiting for delayed flights. I am told that LaGuardia always has thousands of delayed flights.

In fact, three quarters of New York’s population is comprised of airline passengers, most from the Midwest, who have been waiting for a flight home since 1940. They are sleeping atop their luggage, huddled in various corners, living on breath mints.

I am sitting with hundreds of them. Most of these are people whose mothers never taught them to speak with inside voices. Like the two women behind me.

One woman says loudly, “Have you ever seen that one movie with, oh… What’s his name?”

“What movie?” says the other.

“It has that movie star… Oh, what’s that movie? He was real funny.”

“Chevy Chase?”

“No, not Chevy Chase.”

“I love Chevy Chase.”

“I don’t remember the name of the movie.”

“Look it up on your phone.”

“My phone’s dead.”

“Why don’t you charge it?”

“I forgot my charger.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t Chevy Chase?”

“No. It wasn’t Chevy Chase.”

“Chevy Chase was in a lot of movies.”

“I’d remember if it was Chevy Chase.”

“I like Chevy Chase.”

“I wonder what ever happened to him?”

“Who? Chevy Chase? He’s still going at it.”

“Chevy Chase is?”

“Chevy Chase won’t quit.”

Silence.

“Did I ever tell you about my hysterectomy?”

Sweet Jesus.

Beside me are boys playing games on smartphones. They barely speak. They are not even in this world. Their heads are craned forward. They are staring at bright screens.

Every few minutes one shouts something like, “HAHA! I JUST DECAPITATED YOU!”

“I‘M LIQUIFYING YOUR BRAIN!”

“NUH UH!”

“YUH HUH!”

“NUH UH!”

“YUH HUH!”

“MOM!”

Maybe I should be concerned about America’s youth. But of course these…

Somewhere in South Carolina. A rundown seafood joint. The kind of place that serves oysters on the half shell.

I’m sitting at the bar, eating Captain’s Wafers, waiting for my food.

The view is astounding. The salt marshes go on for miles, only interrupted by the sabal palms.

The beer is cheap, and cold enough to crack your fillings. The cocktail sauce is free.

The woman behind the bar looks happy tonight. She is late-middle-aged, and silver haired. She missing more than a few teeth. But it doesn’t affect her beauty. She bounces behind the bar with springy feet.

I finally ask, “Why are you so happy?”

She leans onto the bar. “Guess,” she says.

“You won the powerball?”

She shakes her head. “Guess again.”

“You’re pregnant?”

She laughs. “Honey, that ship sailed a long dadgum time ago.”

Only she doesn’t say “dadgum.”

“I’m happy,” she says, “‘cause I’m gonna graduate.”

“Graduate from what?”

“High school. My daughter and I just took the GED test. And we passed it. Passed it clean.”

The woman looks at me and smiles a her tooth at me. And I’m smiling my less-than-optimal dental

work at her, too.

Because, you see, sitting before her is a guy who was a dropout, just like her.

“I got pregnant when I was in ninth grade,” she goes on. “Parents kicked me out, I had to start working. But I ain’t sorry. I got a good daughter out of the deal, I married a dadgum good man.

“When you’re a kid, it’s easy to drop out. Your little teenage brain only thinks about the here and now. If only I had listened to the adults in my life.”

I nod. Because I’m picking up what she’s laying down.

“But, hey, I don’t regret my life choices,” she adds. “They made me who I am today.”

Another nod from the choir.

She uses a church key to pop…

The letter came via snail mail. It was postmarked Richmond, Virginia. It was penned in a childish hand.

“My teacher reads your stories to our class sometimes and I wanted to know, can you write about me? If it’s not too much trouble for you to do?

“I am 8 years old. I don’t really have anything cool about me. I have red hair. But you can probably come up with something cool. My dad died this year the same way yours did, so my teacher said you are the same as me. It’s okay if you can’t write back.”

To the little boy in Richmond: Red is the most prestigious hair color in the world. That is not an opinion.

Fifty years ago, experts estimated that redheads made up approximately 8 percent of the earth’s population. But the percentage of redheads sharply decreases each year.

This year, the percentage is at an all-time low. About 1 percent of the world’s population have red hair. Ours is the rarest hair color in the solar

system. So welcome to the club, friend.

Our red hair is caused by a gene called the MC1R gene. Genes are microscopic very scientific things in the human body. They float around in your bloodstream, wearing little lab coats and carrying around tiny clipboards and pocket protectors.

A gene is something your parents carry around with them, all the time. Sort of like auto insurance, only more dependable.

So if both your parents had the MC1R gene, this means that you have a 25 percent chance of being born with red hair.

Congratulations, your parents both had the MC1R gene. You’re a ginger. May God have mercy on your soul.

I got my red hair, personally, from my dad. My dad had the MC1R gene. He was a redhead. He came from a long line of redheads. Although when he got older, his hair became more…

Lake Martin is flat. Mirror flat. It is a perfect evening. The sun is low. The crickets are singing in full stereo. And I’m visiting with old ghosts.

My father would have looked at this calm water and said it was as “flat as a bookkeeper’s bottom.” Only he wouldn’t have used the word “bottom.” He would have opted for a more colloquial expression unfit for mixed company.

Unless, of course, my mother was around. In which case he wouldn’t have opened his mouth at all.

Because he was a man of few words, my father. Which is what I remember about him most. His quietness. My aunt used to say that my father once traveled with the circus, performing as a sideshow act: The World’s Most Quiet Man.

So right now, I’m taking up the family business. I haven’t said a word in a few hours. Mostly, I’ve just sipped my cold glass of Milo’s Famous Tea, and I’m happy in the company of my faded memories.

I am thinking about Granny. Granddaddy. Mama. And the man

I once called “Daddy.” I am thinking about what these people would be doing right now, if they were alive.

I know what they would be doing. My Granddaddy would be carving a figurine with his butter-yellow Case knife. My grandmother would be reading the Bible, humming hymns, and chain-smoking Winstons.

My mother would be sewing something with a hoop. My father would be shirtless—he was born shirtless. And he would be drinking something harder than Milo’s.

As it happens, I am a big fan of Milo’s tea. I go through three or four gallons each 60 seconds. And do you know why I like Milo’s?

Because they don’t try to do too much with their tea. They don’t dye it red or add weird ingredients like azodicarbonamide, diacetyl, drywall dust, or rodent excrement. They don’t flavor it with added crapola. It’s…

The distant green mountains are speeding past my train window. I am eating an omelet, drinking coffee, watching America go by at eye level.

The train whistle screams. Two long whistles. One short. One long.

That’s whistle code. It means we’re approaching a highway grade crossing. Whistle code is the law. All trains traveling upwards of 45 mph are required to sound their horns this way a quarter mile before each crossing.

These are things you learn in the dining car.

I have a thing for trains. Always have. When I was a kid, I was one of those annoying little redheaded boys obsessed with locomotives. Some boys were into dinosaurs. Others were deeply committed to Richard Petty. My thing was trains.

I owned all the toys, of course. I had miniature versions of famous locomotives like the Super Chief, the Flying Scotsman, and the City of New Orleans. Also, I could make all the train noises with my mouth. Still can.

But my family didn’t ride trains. We changed our

own motor oil for crying out loud. All I could do was park my bike at train crossings and fantasize when trains blew past.

This is why riding trains is a big deal for me. Sure, I realize trains aren’t as flashy as air travel. They aren’t even efficient in our current Jet Age. A commercial airliner averages speeds of 575 mph. This train rarely exceeds 47 mph. But slowness is precisely why I love trains. Trains are laid back.

Yesterday, I boarded Amtrak’s Crescent No. 20. I almost missed my train because of traffic on the interstate. I arrived in a frenzy, sprinting through the station, and finally reached the platform with three minutes to spare.

I was out of breath. My leg muscles burned. I was stressed. And since I’m used to dealing with embittered airport people, I was prepared to be cussed out by Amtrak officials…

Our train came into Hartford at about one o’clock. The Vermonter eased into Union Station, and we deboarded after the ticket collector shouted, “Hartford, Connecticut!”

The station is built of brownstone and gracious glass windows. It’s a trip backward in time. Like visiting the 1880s.

No sooner had I deboarded than I met an old man, struggling with his heavy baggage. He was using a walker, limping. I helped him into the station. Soon we were seated on oaken pews in the old depot. He was breathing heavily from exertion. I was breathing heavier.

“Thanks for the help,” he said. “Sometimes I forget I’m an old fart.”

“No problem,” said I.

Hartford Union Station is just a giant room. Because that’s all train stations were, long ago. Big rooms. This particular room housed thousands who would embark and disembark for parts unknown.

There’s an adventurous feeling you get inside old train stations. A feeling you don’t get in, say, LaGuardia’s Fifth Circle of Hell.

Long ago, you could have come to Hartford Union Station to travel anywhere you

wanted to go. North to Montreal. West, to Santa Fe. Or south, to the Big Easy.

The old man looks around the station. He’s overcome with nostalgia. My granddaddy always said nostalgia was a crippling narcotic.

“We came to this station all the time when I was a kid.”

He grew up in Hartford. He visited this station with his mother. Each year, as a boy, he would take a solo trip to his aunt’s Pennsylvania. His mother would pin a strip of paper inside his little coat. The paper was labeled with his home address.

The note would read: “IF THIS CHILD IS LOST, PLEASE RETURN TO…” Then, his mother would tuck five dollars into his shoe.

“Everybody’s mom did that back then. People were very trusting.”

The old man points to the ticket booth and rifles through the last 100…

It was the dogs. The dogs are what got me.

When you tour the 9/11 Memorial Museum in New York City, you see a lot. You see twisted steel girders. Baby-faced portraits of the deceased. Mutilated emergency vehicles.

But it was the dogs that wrecked me.

The dog exhibit is pretty small. Located in the far corner of the museum, with photographs of search and rescue dogs.

You see dogs nosing through rubble, wearing safety harnesses. You see them in their prime. They’re all deceased now. But they were spectacular.

There was Riley. Golden retriever. He was trained to find living people. But, he didn’t find any. Instead, he recovered the remains of firefighters. Riley kept searching for a live survivor, but found none. Riley’s morale tanked.

“I tried my best to tell Riley he was doing his job,” said his handler. “He had no way to know that when firefighters and police officers came over to hug him, and for a split second you can see them crack a smile—that Riley was

succeeding at doing an altogether different job. He provided comfort. Or maybe he did know.”

There was Coby and Guiness. Black and yellow Labs. From California. Surfer dogs. They found dozens of human remains.

And Abigail. Golden Lab. Happy. Energetic. Committed. Big fan of bacon.

Sage. A border collie. Cheerful. Endless energy. Her first mission was searching the Pentagon wreckage after the attacks. She recovered the body of the terrorist who piloted American Airlines Flight 77.

Jenner. Black Lab. At age 9, he was one of the oldest dogs on the scene. Jenner’s handler, Ann Wichmann, remembers:

“It was 12 to 15 stories high of rubble and twisted steel. My first thought was, ‘I can't send Jenner into that…’ At one point, [Jenner] disappeared down a hole under the rubble and I was like, ‘Ugggggh!' Such a heart-stopping moment..."

Trakr. German Shepherd. Tireless worker. Worked until he…

Ah, New York City. There is a slight chill. The city is full of Midwesterners, all wearing white Reeboks, all staring straight upward.

My wife and I have just stepped out of our cab, after leaving LaGuardia Third World International Airport. Our cab driver was a nice man who drove upwards of 75 mph with only one finger on the wheel, and that was just on the sidewalks.

Right now, my wife and I are walking to our hotel. Because that’s all you do in New York City, really. You walk. You walk for miles, until the blisters on your feet become the size of U.S. Congresspersons.

Right now, we are stuck walking in a massive clot of people moving like a herd of bison. We are trekking onward, hauling our luggage, dodging cabs.

Even so, my wife is thrilled to be in this town. It is her first time visiting. So she is taking cellphone pictures by the gazillions.

My wife finds important photographic moments wherever she glances. So far, she has taken pictures of our cab’s interior, my half-eaten airport bagel, the

plane’s lavatory, and a middle-aged woman walking down the street dressed like a giant marital aid.

I also have this feeling the locals can tell we’re out-of-towners. We have that look about us. I met a cashier in a coffee shop, for example, when I was trying to order a large iced tea.

My tea arrived. “There’s something wrong with my iced tea, ma’am,” I said.

“What‘s wrong?”

“It’s not sweet.”

“So add some sugar.”

“I can’t add granulated sugar to cold tea.”

“Why not?”

“Because I am not a communist.”

Then the cashier asked if I was from Alabama. I was so impressed this lady guessed where we were from.

“That’s amazing,” I said. “How on earth could you tell where we’re from?”

“Honestly?” she said, leaning in to whisper. “It’s your teeth.”

I’ve never…